[00:00:00] Jim Jansen: Hey everybody. Welcome to the Quip Cast. So today I sit down with Jody, Whitney and Andy from the parish support team, and we talk about how to break your clear path to discipleship. See building a clear path to discipleship. Even though it's not rocket science, sometimes it's easier to break it than you think.

So we go through, uh, the top five ways to break your clear path. This is part one, uh, because we wanna spare you, we wanna spare you some of the, uh, mistakes of accidentally breaking it. We talk about what not to do, and then we talk about the best practices and the wisdom on the other side. Uh, you're gonna love it.

Take a listen. 

Hey everybody. Welcome to the Equip Cast, a weekly podcast for the Archdiocese of Omaha. I'm your host, Jim Janssen. Now let's dive into some encouragement and inspiration to equip you to live your faith and to be fruitful in your mission. Let's go.

Alright everybody, welcome to the Quip Cast. So today I've got a special episode for you. This episode, part one, how to Break Your Clear Path, is a two part series, basically, well, I'll give the shout out later. Uh, inspired by our friends Ron Huntley and Father James Mallon. Talking about how to kill alpha in 10 easy steps.

But what we wanna do is we wanna give you some wisdom of how to not break your clear path really before you even get started. For those of you who don't know, a clear path of discipleship is a parish framework designed to help people take their next steps as disciples of Jesus. It's your plan for making and maturing disciples.

All of us know how to accompany a friend, uh, through their spiritual journey, but it's really nice to have a context, a place in community where when your friend is ready to hear the gospel, you know you can bring them there. They'll get their questions answered and they'll hear a compelling proclamation of the gospel.

Parishes and ministries that have a clear path of discipleship, they know exactly how they connect with people, how they proclaim the gospel, how they help people grow and mature as disciples, and how they equip people as missionary disciples. They have a context, so the missionary disciples know where to bring their friend when they're ready for the next step.

So, uh, the concept is simple, but it's actually easier to break than you might think. And so today I have with me a panel of coaches here from the parish support team here at the Archdiocese of Omaha. We're gonna talk about, uh, how to not break your clear path. I've got Andy Deka, Jody Phillips, and Whitney Bradley.

How you doing folks? 

[00:02:33] Andy Dejka: Doing great. 

[00:02:34] Whitney Bradley: Yeah. Pretty good. 

[00:02:35] Andy Dejka: Yeah. Fun to do this again.

[00:02:36] Jim Jansen: Andy's the one with the guy voice. 

[00:02:39] Whitney Bradley: This is Whitney with the Girl Voice.

[00:02:41] Jodi Phillips: I also have a girl voice. I think I'm Jody. 

[00:02:44] Jim Jansen: Uh, you too. Most definitely. You have a lovely, lovely voice. In fact, Jody, do you remember this like the first time it was your.

A podcast that you were a guest on was before we even met, when you had like interviewed for the position. I was like checking out, you know, researching this Jody Phillips person and I heard your podcast. I'm like, man, she's got a great voice. I know that. 

[00:03:04] Jodi Phillips: A good laugh. That one. 

[00:03:06] Jim Jansen: Yeah. Turns out she's also smart too.

Uh, okay, so again, I promise this, but a shout out to, uh, father James Mallon and Ron Huntley. They did. I mean, I think it's a coup, it's several years old now. You know how to kill Alpha in 10 easy steps, talking about the Alpha Ministry in ClearPath language. We'd call it a conversion moment, and man, that's, that conversation that they had is just chock full of wisdom and it's just so helpful.

There's been a number of parish teams lately that have kind of rediscovered that and just wanna give them a shout out. 'cause that was an inspiration for really the conversation we want to have today. Right. How do you, how do you break your clear path to discipleship before you've even really got started?

Here's how to do it. Just so everybody knows, that's gonna be our only shout outs today because since we're talking about how to break your clear path, we're not gonna like mention a lot of parishes by name. But if you're listening to this and you know who you are, we love you anyway and good job learning your good job, learning your lessons.

Okay, start us off here. Uh, Andy. Number one, how to, how to break your clear path. Don't discern. 

[00:04:15] Andy Dejka: Yeah. Right. It's really important. And there's, the reason we have this as the number one step discernment is mm-hmm. The key to this process. Right. It makes me think of, uh, when Pope Francis said that the Holy Spirit is the protagonist of evangelization.

[00:04:29] Jim Jansen: Wait, wait, big word. What does protagonist mean? 

[00:04:31] Andy Dejka: Right. So it's just the main character. Right. Oh, okay. Got. So if you think about a novel, you think about a play or something. The protagonist, the main character, it's um, we see everything through their point of view. All the action revolves around them. Right.

So that's the Holy Spirit, the protagonist of evangelization. Sometimes I think we can, we can feel like everything depends on us. Mm-hmm. Like every, we're responsible for carrying out the work, kind of all by ourselves, taking initiative. We're the hero, but that's not true. Right. There's, we have a hero, a savior, the Holy Spirit's leading the way.

[00:04:58] Jim Jansen: Although, if I can point out, part of the reason this is hard is that the Holy Spirit is shy. Right? I mean, yes. He's like fire and, and, but he. But he is most often portrayed as a dove, which is like commentators have noted, doves are kind of shy animals, right? They like to kind of hide away. So there's a reason why we have to be gentle and receptive in order to receive the gift that this protagonist offers.

[00:05:26] Andy Dejka: Right? And I think what can happen, at least what I've noticed from my experience when I don't discern, is that fear starts to creep in. And that can manifest as either rushing ahead mm-hmm. And anxiety that causes me to, uh, rush ahead. Like I have to do everything, all my, all myself, or kind of a paralyzing fear.

Mm-hmm. That leads to just delaying. But when I discern, then I have freedom. I experience the peace and the freedom of the Holy Spirit and taking things one step at a time. 

[00:05:53] Jim Jansen: Andy, what does this look like? Practically, I mean, you gave a little bit of an ex an example there, like kinda like rushing ahead or paralyzed by fear.

What is it, and anybody jump in here, what does rushing ahead look like? Can you give just some examples? 

[00:06:06] Andy Dejka: Yeah, so I, I think one way it manifests maybe is you try and advertise a program really big to the whole parish. Before you've actually tested it out with um mm-hmm. A small team first and see 

[00:06:19] Jim Jansen: if it work.

Which, sorry, I laughed when you said that because when you say it, it's common sense. It's like, oh, we should try this before we, but like, we do that all the time. 

[00:06:27] Andy Dejka: Mm-hmm. 

[00:06:28] Jim Jansen: You know, we would, Hey everybody, you should come to this. Well, I've never actually tried it, but it's gonna be great. 

[00:06:33] Andy Dejka: Mm-hmm. Yeah. And so, I mean, another way it would manifest is just trying to do too many things at once.

[00:06:39] Jim Jansen: Mm-hmm.

[00:06:39] Andy Dejka: And going beyond our realistic human capacity.

[00:06:42] Jim Jansen: Mm-hmm.

[00:06:42] Andy Dejka: Right. 

[00:06:44] Whitney Bradley: Can I add one? 

[00:06:45] Andy Dejka: Mm-hmm. 

[00:06:45] Whitney Bradley: Um, I'll just poke at our team. I feel like, 

[00:06:48] Jim Jansen: oh, no, no, no, no, no.

[00:06:50] Jodi Phillips: That's an example and we weren't giving it.

[00:06:51] Jim Jansen: Look at the time. 

[00:06:52] Whitney Bradley: Oh. But one is us. 

[00:06:54] Jim Jansen: No, we can't give ourselves a shout out for dumb... 

[00:06:57] Whitney Bradley: For being bad at stuff. Um, I think sometimes, and it's in zeal 

[00:07:01] Jim Jansen: Yeah.

[00:07:01] Andy Dejka: Mm-hmm. 

[00:07:01] Whitney Bradley: When we notice, 

[00:07:03] Jim Jansen: but misguided zeal. 

[00:07:04] Whitney Bradley: Misguided zeal. 

[00:07:05] Jim Jansen: To be clear. Yeah. 

[00:07:05] Whitney Bradley: I think when we notice, um, a parish. That's stuck or just there's an obstacle that's really obvious to us. We tend to discern for or try to fix for. And we've gotten really good, I think, at being like, well, wait a minute. Have we talked to those people?

Have we brought them into the conversation? Have we asked the Holy Spirit with them what the answer to this problem might be? So there's, there's a zealousness that can enter in that's, um, not from the Holy Spirit. Um, and usually the remedy is just bring the right people into the room along with the Holy Spirit.

[00:07:46] Jim Jansen: That's good. How else do you, okay, so like you're, you're kind of talking about the anti, uh, the antidotes here. So Okay. Bring the right people in the room. How else do you avoid just skipping discernment or missing it? 

[00:07:59] Jodi Phillips: It's a, it's just a pause.

[00:08:00] Whitney Bradley: Mm-hmm.

[00:08:01] Jodi Phillips: Right? That's, I mean, you have to

[00:08:03] Jim Jansen: mm-hmm.

[00:08:03] Jodi Phillips: Make space to ask where the Holy Spirit is working, and that's the key.

Where is he already working? What's he already doing? Because otherwise I work off of my own desires rather than aligning my desires to the Lord's. 

[00:08:18] Jim Jansen: Right. And I would add. Like pause and also, but just explicitly ask. Mm-hmm. You know, we've talked about it on multiple podcasts before, but just using the discernment rosary.

I mean, there's a whole number of reasons why the discernment rosary is powerful, but one of the reasons it's powerful is you just explicitly ask. There's something about, there's something about ex because I think the Lord is, is kind. He speaks to us even when we don't explicitly ask, but there is something about pausing and explicitly asking that helps us remember what he reveals.

Because we're in a, we're in a place where like, oh, and if you're doing it as a group, if you have the right people in the room, they're like, oh, hey, we, we all remember. And when we start to rush ahead or get off track, there's a group that can say, Hey, wait a minute, but didn't the Lord say wait for me, or whatever.

[00:09:07] Whitney Bradley: I mean, that's great, Jim. That's also just for the big moments. Mm-hmm. Um, and I think one thing that we're still learning, and I think a lot of people are still learning is, is the daily habits of. Pausing. 

[00:09:22] Jim Jansen: Mm-hmm. 

[00:09:23] Whitney Bradley: In the small moments. You know, I think, I'm presuming most of our listeners have a daily habit of prayer, so I'm not saying like something extraordinary to what they're currently doing, but just in the midst of the work, noticing when they're feeling hurried, or noticing when they're jumping too, too far ahead, or not bringing the Holy Spirit into the conversation.

The quiet moments.

[00:09:51] Jim Jansen: Mm-hmm.

[00:09:51] Whitney Bradley: Throughout the day. 

[00:09:52] Jim Jansen: Yeah. I mean, I wasn't gonna give another shout out, but I will, this reminds me a lot of, I think like Father John Ricardo's work, he's been leading parish teams to ask the, you know, ask the Lord the question like, Lord, what's your plan? Right. To not just like, he doesn't just.

Love us and desire good things for us, but he actually has a plan for our parishes. And so to ask him, and I think this is, this is in that similar space, like in the big moments and the quiet moments and the ordinary, like just ask him, because like he's good at this, he had a plan from all eternity, right?

To like rescue us from sin and bring us back. When you see all of the foreshadowings of the Old Testament. It's like, oh yeah, he's good at this kind of plan thing. And so, you know, let him be a part of the team. Okay, so that's number one. Don't discern how to, how to break your clear path. Number two, Whitney, this is, this is yours.

Do it alone. What does that mean? 

[00:10:49] Whitney Bradley: What it says, do it all by yourself and don't ask anybody else to help. 'cause everybody, all of our heroes in the Bible did it alone. All the saints did it alone. So why shouldn't we? 

[00:11:01] Jim Jansen: Yeah, but not true. 

[00:11:03] Whitney Bradley: No, it's not.

[00:11:03] Jim Jansen: Stop lying Whitney.

[00:11:04] Whitney Bradley: It's, it's not true. It's a joke. But with all seriousness, I do think sometimes in our, especially our American imagination

[00:11:11] Jim Jansen: mm-hmm.

[00:11:12] Whitney Bradley: We can see these famous biblical figures and famous saints and think that they somehow weren't a part of the body of Christ and did in fact do it alone. So, you know, maybe just to point out some of my favorites. Like Moses famously needed Aaron. He said no to God, in fact. And so God said, here's Aaron. 

[00:11:34] Jim Jansen: And Miriam, his sister. 

[00:11:36] Whitney Bradley: And Miriam. 

[00:11:36] Jim Jansen: And Joshua, his like understudy, you know, like commander of the army. 

[00:11:40] Jodi Phillips: Even Jethro.

[00:11:40] Whitney Bradley: Mm-hmm. 

[00:11:41] Jim Jansen: Oh yeah. And his, his 

[00:11:42] Whitney Bradley: father-in-law 

[00:11:42] Jim Jansen: brother-in-law. Brother-in-law, father-in-law, 

[00:11:44] Whitney Bradley: father-in-law, 

[00:11:45] Jim Jansen: yeah. Sorry. 

[00:11:46] Whitney Bradley: My biblical sorry, is better than Jim's. 

[00:11:50] Jim Jansen: Well, your tongue is just a awake my, okay, keep going. 

[00:11:52] Whitney Bradley: Um, but speaking of Jaro Jethro, you know, less famously, he came to Moses and was kinda like, and I'm paraphrasing, you're drowning.

You need help. 

[00:12:01] Jim Jansen: Which is only an Old Testament problem and nobody experiences that today. 

[00:12:05] Whitney Bradley: No. And so he was told. To appoint 72 elders, and he did. So he had lots of people to help him lead this nation. Uh, I also think about where would David be without Nathan and um, I'm just assuming David didn't run a nation by himself.

[00:12:22] Jim Jansen: Oh no. I mean like, well, so Jonathan, right? Like his, his good friend, but then he's got this whole band of mighty men. He's got, right? I mean, this is like, you know, those of you who are like apologetics nerds, he's got his al bait head of the household, he's got the commander. There's all, there's queen mother.

Like there's all of these figures. This huge, I mean this a huge team. 

[00:12:43] Jodi Phillips: I feel like, I feel like you're trying to win back your biblical knowledge. 

[00:12:47] Jim Jansen: Uh, yeah. Yeah. You gotta be trying to name drop whatever.

[00:12:49] Whitney Bradley: I also know what an albay is. But anyway, um, so yeah. And then I just wanna point out, obviously the best model of all, which is Jesus, who could have, I presume, done it on his own and yet didn't, had 12 and sent them two by two.

Mm-hmm. Our best models didn't do it alone. But I also think the other trap I think, that I find my leaders falling into is this. Like, but I'm the one who, who gets paid, I have 40 hours a week to do this. I I should be doing the work. 

[00:13:24] Jim Jansen: Right. It's my job. They're just volunteers or whatever. 

[00:13:27] Whitney Bradley: Right. And I don't wanna burden them.

And I, and yeah, and it's my job, but I, and I wish I'd had a chance to get this language from him. A couple of weeks ago, I, I had this conversation with one of my leaders and he was like, he had this aha moment. He was like, wait, if I don't bring them in the work, you mean I'm taking away from them? The, he didn't use the word vocation 'cause there's a more proper word here that I can't think of, but like I'm taking away from them, their vocation to mission that the Lord gave to them if I do the work for them.

[00:14:00] Jim Jansen: Well, and it's fun too. I mean, this is part of, I think, why the reason, right? Pope Francis called joy of the Gospel, the joy of the gospel, like. Entering into the mission of the church particularly, right. The salvation of souls. It's just fun. And maybe they don't know that right away. Maybe they're like, okay, I am gonna say yes 'cause we're friends, but like, pretty soon it's going to be a place of joy for them.

[00:14:21] Andy Dejka: I think too, it's, it's also just part of being the body of Christ, right? That the Lord has placed gifts that each of us need in those around us so that we can't do it ourselves, but we actually have to seek out the gifts of, of one another as we're being built into the body of Christ. So we, we love to use resources like, um, Gallup strengths.

Mm-hmm. Or the working genius with teams. It points to the things that we're, that we are gifted in, and then what are the gaps that we need to rely on others. So all of us have have particular gaps for ministry and mission. 

[00:14:52] Jim Jansen: What else does this look like practically? You mentioned like some of those kind of assessment tools you wanna find people with other gifting and strengths.

Like, what else does it look like, you know, does, does it look like practically. 

[00:15:03] Whitney Bradley: I mean, I don't know if this is a practical answer, but when you're really on mission and you're really hearing from the Holy Spirit, it's just bigger than you can do alone. 

[00:15:18] Jim Jansen: Mm-hmm. 

[00:15:18] Whitney Bradley: So, practically speaking, like your desire and your vision for mission has to be so big that you're like, well, if I, I would fail, I for sure would fail if I did this alone. 

[00:15:32] Jim Jansen: Yeah. I almost hear like a test, an authenticity test. Like if it's from God, it's gonna be bigger than you. I mean, that makes sense. That was, you know, like in my experience, I've been kind of like reflecting black back, uh, days.

Being able to be part of the, the building of a missional community, one of the largest and most fruitful in our state. And looking back on that, I mean, there were hundreds of, of like man hours, man and woman hours, right? Like, just like people, like just engaging in the, in the mission and nobody, I mean, okay, some had it like as their full-time job, but it was just everybody found a place in this mission and the dream.

Would never would've been. I mean, the entire mission field, if you're talking about, obviously this could be true of a particular ministry, but let's say in a parish context. Okay. Every single soul in the parish boundary, that's just. I don't know, maybe you're in a really sparsely populated area, but that's just, that's almost always bigger than one person can possibly do.

Or even a small team of people. I mean, we're talking about teams of teams working together, coordinated various ministries. You know, you think about a fully developed clear path. You've got a team of people leading the conversion moment Alpha. You've got a team of people leading small groups and supporting those leaders.

You've got a team of people that are helping people discover their charisms. And you know, and get equipped for their particular mission. I mean, even with just that little description, I hope people are getting an imagination like, wow, there's a lot of people involved in bringing this thing to life. 

[00:17:05] Whitney Bradley: Well, and even when you have a team of teams, you have turnover, like life situations just happen. People move. People grow into new ministries, new apostolate, especially if they're really hearing from the Holy Spirit. 

[00:17:18] Jim Jansen: Well, and it's good, like the turnover is like, there's like the life turnover, like, oh man, like nobody really wants this person to move on yet.

We'd love for them to continue to lead and serve in this way. So there's like that turnover, but then there's also the intentional turnover again, right? Shout out for like the insight that Father Mallon and, and Ron share about. How to kill Alpha, that, that healthy Alphas intentionally have a leadership turnover.

There's a degree to which you wanna plan that turnover. 

[00:17:44] Whitney Bradley: Mm-hmm.

[00:17:45] Jim Jansen: For every ministry.

[00:17:46] Whitney Bradley: Yeah. I mean, if you, if you're Moses, you need to be looking for your Joshua constantly. 'cause at the very, like, I'm like, even if you never leave. You're gonna die someday. Sorry to be dark. 

[00:18:00] Jim Jansen: Wow.

[00:18:00] Jodi Phillips: In case you didn't know. 

[00:18:01] Whitney Bradley: In case you didn't know. And so, yeah, you just, you want that next person. But also, as Andy was saying, in the body of Christ, that next person also makes the work more fruitful, more joyful, all the things. 

[00:18:16] Jim Jansen: Number two, if you wanna, if you wanna break your clear path, just do it alone. Really, that's, that's a really easy way to break your clear path.

Okay. Number three, how to break your clear path. Do it all at once. Andy, talk about this. How do you do it all at once? You can break your clear path. 

[00:18:33] Andy Dejka: Yeah. I think really the only way to do it all at once is to just do it in theory and write it down on a piece of paper. Right. 

[00:18:41] Jim Jansen: Right. 'cause actually we don't have usually the capacity to do it all at once.

[00:18:44] Andy Dejka: Right? We can't, um, we can't do it all at once, but, 

[00:18:47] Jodi Phillips: or just do it really poorly. 

[00:18:48] Andy Dejka: Right. Or do it really poorly. 

[00:18:49] Whitney Bradley: Or get paralyzed. You write it down and then you're like, that's impossible. 

[00:18:53] Andy Dejka: Yeah. Well, it flows from our, our discernment, right? That first step that we talked about. Because, and part of discernment is actually putting things into practice, putting things into action.

[00:19:03] Jim Jansen: Mm-hmm.

[00:19:03] Andy Dejka: Not just doing the, the praying and the thinking part, but actually taking a step of action and doing that on a small level. Like if I was going to start Christ's life and I beta tested first with my team and kind of see how that went, and that's then information that I can continue discerning and then we can say, you know what, let's invite.

Personally invite some leaders from the parish to a smaller version in this next season and we take slow steps. 

[00:19:29] Jim Jansen: Yeah. Well, it, well, I mean, it's like a test. It's like, okay. It's like, Lord, we think we heard, right. We're gonna like ask you to bless this. We're, we're gonna take a step and then see if he does just to like kind of stay in the, uh, my insecurity about my biblical knowledge.

Right? It's like, it's like Gideon, like if you remember the story of Gideon in the book of judges, he is this like, God calls him and he is like, I don't know. We'll see. And he keeps. It's this really funny scene where he, he puts out this fleece, right, and if like the dew falls on it, if the dew doesn't fall on it, the whole idea is like, he has this test.

It's like, all right, Lord, I think I've heard you, so I'm gonna put this out there. Not in an unfaithful kind of testing, tempting God, but a Lord. Fine. Just making sure my ears work here. Could you confirm this? And, and you take a step. And when the, when you take a little step, it's an opportunity for the Lord to confirm it.

[00:20:17] Andy Dejka: Mm-hmm. 

[00:20:17] Jim Jansen: Yes. We want you to use this as your conversion moment. 

[00:20:20] Andy Dejka: Yeah. 

[00:20:21] Jim Jansen: Or whatever. 

[00:20:21] Andy Dejka: And so it's really pointing to the fact that discernment doesn't just happen at the beginning, but it happens all throughout. Mm-hmm. Right? We're constantly discerning our clear path and what's actually effective and helpful for people to grow.

Uh, we might, as we get into it, learn like. Wow, I didn't realize our leaders didn't really know how to pray. And so now we actually have to spend more time doing that and mentoring people in, in prayer, right? Or maybe they have a fear about sharing their faith and maybe those were things that I didn't know at the outset, and now I need to factor those things into my clear path.

[00:20:50] Jim Jansen: Yeah, that's huge. I mean, thank you for sharing that. 'cause when we talk about like, you know, building a clear path, we talk about, okay, there's the assessment phase and the discernment phase and the implementation phase, communication, you know, alignment, expansion, but. They are. They do kind of fall chronologically.

I mean, it's hard to discern if you haven't done the assessment and it's hard to implement anything if you haven't done the discernment. But it's not like discernment goes away. I mean, it's there and it's not like communication doesn't show up until step four. I mean, it's like these things are present all the time.

It's why they're more like phases rather than distinct steps. 

[00:21:23] Whitney Bradley: Because on the other side of what Andy was saying, so there's like that you learn about your people and you learn their gaps. But also I think. What we see is when you do one step at a time, the Lord blesses something unexpected and you're like, 

[00:21:37] Jim Jansen: yeah, 

[00:21:37] Whitney Bradley: oh, I need to go there.

[00:21:39] Andy Dejka: Mm-hmm.

[00:21:39] Whitney Bradley: And see where that grows into. And if you have it too planned out and you're trying to do it all at once, then oftentimes you don't leave room for those unexpected growths. 

[00:21:51] Jim Jansen: Mm-hmm. There's another aspect of this that I want to invite you guys to, to speak into and that there's a little bit of a tension and that is like, you know, we've used the metaphor before, the idea of like building your clear path is like paving the dirt path that's already been there, right?

That the Holy Spirit's at work and he's doing things and he's transforming lives, and part of your discernment is recognizing how he's been doing that, and then beginning to just expand it or pave it or make it more accessible to more people. There's a tension to that where it's like, okay, we, we wanna have kind of like a full process and let people grow and mature.

And then on the other side, there's this very human. You kind of can just build one thing at a time, and if you just have one thing working, like a healthy conversion moment that's better than a, you know, half formed not working, you know, three or four steps along the path. Can you just talk a little bit about that tension, because I understand.

You know, it can feel like a chicken or egg thing, and I understand why, why that can feel difficult and trip people up. 

[00:22:51] Whitney Bradley: I'm thinking of two parishes, two rural parishes that I have, or families of parishes, and they're kind of an opposite ends of the spectrum. One has an enormous amount of, uh, missionary fruitful disciples that they could call on to do steps in the clear path and one.

Doesn't, they just 

[00:23:11] Jim Jansen: mm-hmm. 

[00:23:11] Whitney Bradley: There's, there's not a lot of people in general and they have a lot of formation to go with. They're very good people, but a lot of formation to go and they're both being very, very careful about only doing one thing at a time. And it's, I think for two reasons in both cases, so that they don't break what they currently have.

[00:23:32] Andy Dejka: Mm-hmm. 

[00:23:33] Whitney Bradley: Uh, which is a conversion moment. They need to be able to keep that going. In order to move on to whatever secondary to that, but they also are just being really attentive to, again, their whole, the Holy Spirit and their, their people's needs. In the parish where there's a dearth, it's just like, okay, what can we even do with so little people?

And how do we not burn them out? How do we give our people little bit of encouragement in life in this space? Yeah. When they're doing. Alpha and all of them are probably even called to do alpha. We just need to keep alpha going until we have enough people who are actually called to do alpha. 

[00:24:13] Jim Jansen: Right. Well, and there's, I, I mean, I hear trust at two levels.

One, just trusting that like, okay, we've got only one step of our clear path really well built, but the Lord's gonna take care of other people. But also like. Many of these ministries, like when you really get, uh, Alpha's a great example. When you get inside Alpha, you recognize, oh, as a leader, it's actually evangelization formation, right?

And as I continue to marinate in the core gospel message, that is the content of Alpha, that's actually not bad faith formation. And so there's a number of things going on where people are being grown and matured, even if you. On paper only have one step. 

[00:24:56] Jodi Phillips: I think, uh, just to go back to that, the necessity of that trust in the spirit and, and why that discernment is so essential in the consistent, faithful discernment, just to name, I mean a little bit of like consolation and desolation, right?

Like when, when you're building the clear path, the evil one does not want you to do this. Mm-hmm. And so in a moment of desolation, you're gonna hear the voice of the evil one rushing you. You're not doing enough. You're not building this fast enough. What are you even getting done? And sometimes that's gonna be the internal voice, and sometimes that's gonna come out through people in the parish.

It might come out in your pastoral council, it might be someone saying like, Hey, we said we were gonna do all these things. What's even happening? 

[00:25:36] Jim Jansen: It could even be people who work at the Chancery. 

[00:25:40] Jodi Phillips: Right? So there's all of these voices, not diocese, trying to rush you. And so, so to be really secure in that trust in the Lord and his slowness, right?

Because, hmm. And we continue to look at the work of the Lord. He's always slow, right? The work of the Lord is always slow and patient. I love that. He's frustratingly patient, frustratingly, right? He described the Holy Spirit as shy. I I had never really thought of him as shy, as just maybe gentle, um, right?

But there's this, this patient slow work of of of God, both in and through us and I think, so our clear path is gonna be slow. Whereas the evil one rushes us, he makes us busier. He makes us less effective.

[00:26:21] Whitney Bradley: Mm-hmm.

[00:26:21] Jodi Phillips: Yeah. Because he doesn't want us to be effective. 

[00:26:24] Whitney Bradley: Right?

[00:26:24] Jim Jansen: Mm-hmm.

[00:26:24] Whitney Bradley: Yeah. I mean, so the parish that has the multiplicity of talents.

It's also being careful. I think for that same reason, it's we all want to be pulling in the same direction. We wanna be very clear that we're following the Holy Spirit. Mm-hmm. So we're not gonna do all the things at once, even though potentially we could. They just want to be attentive to what's right in front of them.

[00:26:49] Jodi Phillips: Mm-hmm. 

[00:26:49] Andy Dejka: Mm-hmm. It makes me think of just the pace of this, the pace of your clear path. Happens according to relationships. 

[00:26:57] Jim Jansen: Mm-hmm. 

[00:26:57] Andy Dejka: Right? The way that you expand is by investing in people, by accompanying people, by mentoring people, not just about getting, you know, programs set up, plug and play kinda situation.

[00:27:07] Jim Jansen: Right, right, right. 

[00:27:08] Andy Dejka: And so that's part of the, the slowness is how are we increasing our leadership capacity by investing in the people around us. 

[00:27:14] Jim Jansen: Hmm. Yeah. That's, that's so good. Like it's the speed of relationships is how and, and the development of individuals as they begin to grow and mature in their own missionary calling.

Like, that's the pace you can, you can move at. And oftentimes that means one particular ministry context at a time. Okay. So good. Ah, all right. Number four, Jody, how to break your clear path. Number four, wait for them to come to you. Say more about that. 

[00:27:42] Jodi Phillips: Yeah, I think. We have this habit sometimes of thinking that everything in our parish has to be perfect before we reach anyone outside.

[00:27:52] Jim Jansen: Hmm. Yeah. 

[00:27:53] Jodi Phillips: And if we do that, the reality is we will never, because the church is made up of imperfect people who. Just, I don't know if you realize this, but we will never be perfect on this side of heaven. Aw. I know. It's really unfortunate, but, uh, I just know that about myself and I know that about everyone around this table. And, um, I know that about every single one of our listeners, so. 

[00:28:16] Jim Jansen: Yeah, she reads souls. It's great. 

[00:28:18] Jodi Phillips: It's, it's not, it's not hard to read. 

[00:28:20] Whitney Bradley: Know that we're all sinful people. 

[00:28:22] Jodi Phillips: Yeah. So, so we're never gonna have this perfect parish that's the most hospitable and the most this and the most that actually something that.

Act, it's kind of wonderful that we can do those. We can start reaching outside and create a problem where suddenly we have to fix it. Right? So imagine. 

[00:28:39] Jim Jansen: Oh yeah. 

[00:28:40] Jodi Phillips: Imagine that. Instead of trying to fix the hospitality at our parish and trying to create all of the most perfect, I don't know, small groups and all of the things, we start going outside of our parish first and suddenly we have people showing up.

[00:28:57] Jim Jansen: Mm-hmm. 

[00:28:58] Jodi Phillips: And suddenly you have people saying like. Wait a minute. We don't have the hospitality we wish we had.

[00:29:04] Jim Jansen: Mm-hmm.

[00:29:04] Jodi Phillips: And we have people showing up and our OCIA class. Ooh, it's too, we don't have a room big enough. 

[00:29:12] Jim Jansen: Mm-hmm. 

[00:29:12] Jodi Phillips: And we, we've kind of created a problem for ourselves that now we can solve. So if we wait for people to come to us, they'll never come to us.

That's, that's how we can break it. Yeah, I love that. But love instead, we start going out. We create a problem that we get to solve, and it's a really exciting problem to solve. 

[00:29:30] Jim Jansen: Well, and also when you. When you solve a problem that is a real person's need. 

[00:29:37] Jodi Phillips: Mm-hmm. 

[00:29:37] Jim Jansen: You're, you're far more likely to get it right for, for everybody else. But if it's just in your head, you're like, well that may not be what's needed for hospitality or what's needed for that group of, of people. 

[00:29:50] Jodi Phillips: Mm-hmm. Exactly. 

[00:29:51] Jim Jansen: I mean, you know, in some ways this, like, this is like the anti kind of field of dreams. Like, you know, just because you build it doesn't mean they'll come.

Right. You know, the field of dreams, if you build it, they will come. I mean, this is like. I mean, yes, build something, but it's the people who are going to get other people, inviting them to a conversion moment space, inviting them to grow in their faith, inviting them to be equipped for mission. It's those.

It's the individuals who are being invited and individuals who are doing the inviting, that's the heart of this. Everything else, the programs are just a context for those people to experience what, whatever they need for the, for the next step in their, their journey. 

[00:30:29] Jodi Phillips: I think actually you, you mentioned this, I remember.

About the Newman Center in Lincoln. 

[00:30:34] Jim Jansen: Mm-hmm. 

[00:30:35] Jodi Phillips: That the reason why they built the, the church so big and the ministry center so big is because they needed it. Because they had so many, yeah. Students coming, they had outgrown their space rather than building. 

[00:30:47] Jim Jansen: We were breaking the fire code at every mass. 

[00:30:49] Jodi Phillips: Yep.

[00:30:49] Jim Jansen: Which was cool. Unless you were like the fire marshal. 

[00:30:53] Jodi Phillips: Rather than making a plan and building a church because most likely Right, we will someday need a church this big and then. We just have this giant church that's sitting empty. 

[00:31:03] Jim Jansen: Right. 

[00:31:03] Jodi Phillips: Right. We see that happen more often than we would like. 

[00:31:07] Jim Jansen: Mm-hmm. 

[00:31:07] Jodi Phillips: But instead they had to build a church to meet a problem. The real need. 

[00:31:12] Whitney Bradley: You guys are reminding me of the gospel from a few weeks ago about going out to the highways and byways. 

[00:31:18] Jim Jansen: Mm-hmm. 

[00:31:19] Whitney Bradley: Just very aware that it took three rounds of going out. There were the first people who were invited who didn't come.

[00:31:25] Jim Jansen: Hmm.

[00:31:26] Whitney Bradley: And then, 

[00:31:26] Jim Jansen: wow. 

[00:31:27] Whitney Bradley: Yeah. And so the steward was sent out.

Two more times.

[00:31:30] Jodi Phillips: Mm-hmm.

[00:31:31] Whitney Bradley: And so it's, it's actually, I don't know. I just am like, oh, I'm just hearing Jesus say like it's actually a lot of work to do outreach and to get people to show up. 

[00:31:42] Jim Jansen: Mm-hmm.

[00:31:43] Andy Dejka: I think another thing to think about is sometimes people need a bridge. That an intermediate step before they contact our, or come to our church building.

[00:31:52] Jim Jansen: Mm-hmm.

[00:31:53] Andy Dejka: Right. So equipping families to be the, that kinda midway point of hospitality where someone can connect. Sometimes we. We just think about our, our parish building, right? And we don't think as much about equipping families so that they can be a good bridge in intermediate step. 

[00:32:09] Jim Jansen: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Oh, that's so good.

[00:32:11] Jodi Phillips: I mean, you mentioned, you mentioned Alpha as as, right. We've been talking about it a lot, but this is one of the reasons why Alpha often fails is because it's, it becomes just a program that a parish runs rather than something that is a, has a culture of invitation.

[00:32:26] Jim Jansen: Mm-hmm. 

[00:32:26] Jodi Phillips: Right. Eventually, everyone in your parish has gone through Alpha.

It turns out Alpha wasn't necessarily for anyone in your parish. It was always for people who probably were a little bit on the fringes. Right? And so, and, but we've never invited them, which that might have included some of the people in your parish, but it, it was always meant for the people who may or may not have been coming to Mass.

They might be your neighbor, they might be your hairdresser, like, right, but we've never invited them. And now we're like, oh. Man, our alpha got really small and we have to, we've gotta put this in the bulletin again and why aren't we getting the session used to. 

[00:33:05] Whitney Bradley: The bulletin? The audience that it's alpha's not for.

[00:33:09] Jim Jansen: Right? Yeah. So, yeah, because your hairdresser is not reading the bulletin. 

[00:33:11] Jodi Phillips: Yeah. 

[00:33:11] Jim Jansen: I mean, this is, this is why it's like, if you can have a culture of invitation and outreach, then these gathering spaces, these ministries, the context, the programs, they're just, they're just a solution to the felt need. That, that you have now.

Like, Hey, my friend is ready to hear the gospel. Could we like, and we're like, Hey, me too, me too. You know, it's like, well, why don't we have a thing where they can all hear the gospel together? Um, and it's just, yeah, a solution to, to a real, real need. That's huge. Okay, here we go. So that's, that's number four.

Just wait for them to come to you. One more for today. Number five, how to break your clear path. Assume conversion. Andy, what does that mean? 

[00:33:53] Andy Dejka: Yeah. So what we're aiming toward in this whole process is that people would have a deeper conversion to Jesus, right? They'd become disciples. Um, we can make and mature disciples of Jesus, but when we're not attentive to that, we can just kind of go through the motions when we don't maybe know if people are having that experience, uh, if we don't ask, if we're not intentional about it.

I think it's helpful though to think about this assuming conversion in kind of three ways. One is the parish leaders, all the other parish ministry leaders and, and staff. And then the participants, people that are going through the clear path. And then myself too. I don't wanna assume conversion about any of those three groups, right?

Sometimes we have parish ministry leaders that have been there for many, many years, faithfully serving in different ways. And I, it makes me think of kind of the story of the Prodigal son, where they're in the father's house mm-hmm. And they're serving, but they don't have a relationship with the father.

At least not the relationship that he really desires for them. Right. And so we don't wanna assume that they've had these experiences. We still wanna invite them to participate in, in the clear path. 

[00:34:55] Whitney Bradley: So by Prodigal son, you mean the older brother? 

[00:34:57] Jim Jansen: The older brother.

[00:34:58] Andy Dejka: The older brother, yeah. 

[00:34:59] Whitney Bradley: I've, I'm the older brother. I've always felt like the older brother and it was. The moment when the Lord was like, you can have the fatted calf anytime. 

[00:35:07] Jim Jansen: Mm-hmm. 

[00:35:08] Whitney Bradley: And that like has helped me. Like that was a deeper call to conversion and mission for me is all I'm trying to say. 

[00:35:14] Jim Jansen: Mm-hmm. Well, and this is deeply connected in some ways, what we were just talking about, but like why it's so important.

Okay. If you're gonna avoid trying to just, or just having people wait, having veteran leaders experience your conversion moment so that. They have that experience that they can speak from experience when making invitations. It, it's a very concrete way to avoid assuming conversion, and it's a great way to make sure that you're not just waiting, that people have experienced something so beautiful that the invitation just kind of comes out of them.

Andy, how else do you, like, what else do we need to keep in mind as we're trying to avoid this assumption of conversion? 

[00:35:54] Andy Dejka: I think, you know, I've, I've seen it a lot with things like alpha, a conversion moment experience where we kind of. Fall into kind of a, uh, a checkbox mentality where if someone just went through the program mm-hmm.

We kind of assume that they had a conversion, but we don't really know that unless we took the time to have a conversation with that person. And that's where they think the real labor, the real work. Yes. Of clear. It's accompaniment. It's the accompaniment, right? 

[00:36:17] Jim Jansen: Yeah. 

[00:36:18] Andy Dejka: Yeah. So how, how are we actually sitting down and making sure everybody gets a personal contact?

So we can understand what the next right step is for their journey, right? We can't just assume that they had a conversion and now they're good and they're on the, on the right track. 

[00:36:30] Jim Jansen: Andy, you, you said something that made me uncomfortable and I'd love to just gloss over it, but in the interest of you, you said like, we can't assume conversion in ourselves either.

What do you mean by that? 

[00:36:42] Andy Dejka: I think it's easy. I, I mean, definitely I see this in, in myself at times, right? That, you know, if I'm on the evangelization team for my parish. If I work for the diocese, right, that that conversion is for other people, right? 

[00:36:55] Jim Jansen: I'm, my resume says I'm converted. 

[00:36:58] Andy Dejka: Right? Right. And so I can, I can miss opportunities that the Lord is inviting me more deeply into and that maybe I actually need to participate in some of the things that I'm recommending to others, um, so I can stay open to, to his grace.

So I think we just really wanna be attentive to that, not miss the opportunities for our own conversion. 

[00:37:16] Jim Jansen: You know, when, when you say that, it's like, ugh, it rains uncomfortably true. But I, I'm reminded, I just stumbled across, uh, a quote from John Paul ii, which is, uh, kind of old now. I mean, I think it's like 1990.

Turns out 1990 has been a while ago now. 

[00:37:30] Whitney Bradley: I think that makes all of us in this room old. 

[00:37:33] Jim Jansen: No, I mean, I'm not saying, but it's just, but it wasn't yesterday, right? 

[00:37:35] Whitney Bradley: The year Andy was born. 

[00:37:36] Jim Jansen: This is this, this is John Paul II talking in, in mission to the redeemer. And just, again, I just came across this, he says, A radical conversion in thinking is required in order to become missionary, both for individuals and for entire communities.

And he goes on and says a bunch of like really brilliant stuff. So I won't, but like, just that it's like a, a ra, it's takes a radical conversion in thinking. And even when we've decided, cool, I wanna build a clear path and let's, you know, let's get, let's get alpha started and let's get some small groups going.

There's still some radical conversion in thinking, uh, required probably, at least for me. All right. That's, that's good stuff. Those are okay. Those are your first five. Everybody, your first five. Ways to break your clear path before you've even really gotten started. Uh, how to break your clear path to discipleship.

We're gonna come back next time and we're gonna talk about, uh, five more ways. 'cause you, I know you're like, Ooh, I need more ways to break my clear path. So hang in there. Next episode, we're gonna talk about more ways to break your clear path to discipleship. See you next time. 

Thanks for listening to the EquipCast. We hope this episode has inspired you to live your faith and equip you to be fruitful in your mission. Stay connected with us by going to equip dot arch omaha.org. God bless and see you next time.